Sunday, April 27, 2014

One has to be either deaf or blind or both not to notice the decline of what was once Great Britain. Countries grow old, like individuals do, and few gain wisdom. They become feeble. But it is often the case that individuals retain their dignity and courage along with the wisdom they have gained, right to the end, and depart in peace.This is unlikely to be Britain's destiny.But neither will it be like the warrior nation it used to be. A warrior could look forward - indeed he strode forward - to meet a glorious end battling the forces that would destroy him.

" 'Tis a good day to die ".

Sir William and Lady Elanor (Alianora) de Burgate.A Brass Rubbing from the Tomb was made by the Tavern Keeper and hangs on a wall in the tavern,

Not for Britain. It will whimper.But it may serve a purpose in warning other Anglophile countries of their fate if they do not avoid the yellow rot in the British liver. It is not too late to take the appropriate medicine. Mark dropped by to chat:

On page 196 of After America (personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available right here, he pleads with an eye to his free-speech pushback), I write as follows:

In 2009, Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian and soi-disant Islamophobe, flew into London and promptly got shipped back to the Netherlands as a threat to public order. After the British Government had reconsidered its stupidity, he was permitted to return and give his speech at the House of Lords – and, as foreigners often do, he quoted Winston Churchill, under the touchingly naive assumption that this would endear him to the natives.

Whereas, of course, to almost all members of Britain's current elite, quoting Churchill approvingly only confirms that you're an extremist lunatic.

I had the honor a couple of years back of visiting President Bush in the White House and seeing the bust of Sir Winston on display in the Oval Office. When Barack Obama moved in, he ordered it removed and returned to the British. Its present whereabouts are unclear.

But, given what Churchill had to say about Islam in his book on the Sudanese campaign, the bust was almost certainly arrested upon landing at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.

If you're wondering what it is Churchill actually said about Islam, well, I've quoted it from time to time - for example, a decade ago in a Telegraph column about the then Home Secretary's proposed protections for Islamic sensitivities, "Blunkett's Ban Will Fan The Flames". I began the piece with a reader's recollection of the first weeks of the Salman Rushdie fatwa:

A couple of years back, I mentioned the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and received a flurry of lively e-mails. It was Valentine's Day 1989, you'll recall, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his extraterritorial summary judgment on a British subject, and shortly thereafter large numbers of British Muslims were marching through English cities openly calling for Rushdie to be killed.

A reader in Bradford recalled asking a West Yorkshire officer on the street that day why the various "Muslim community leaders" weren't being arrested for incitement to murder.

The officer said they'd been told to "play it cool". The calls for blood got more raucous. My correspondent asked his question again. The policeman told him to "F--- off, or I'll arrest you."

And so it has gone, ever more openly, across the ensuing quarter-century. Point out problematic aspects of Islam, and

the British state's response is

"F--- off, or I'll arrest you."

Her Majesty's Constabulary do not yet police their charges quite as strictly as the Saudi mutaween, but they're getting there:

The day after Drummer Lee Rigby was hacked to death in broad daylight on the streets of London, a march in support of the "Help for Heroes" military charity led to a five-hour standoff between marchers and police, ending with the arrest of Lee Cousins for "mocking the Islamic prayer ritual" by getting down on his hands and knees outside the pub.

He was fined 600 pounds.

When was the last time someone was fined 600 quid for mocking any bit of Christian ritual?

Which is how I came to be quoting Churchill in the Telegraph a decade ago:

That's another reason the British Government should not be in the business of helping coercive lobby groups further stifle debate. Islam raises political questions that Judaism or Buddhism doesn't - the suggestion, for example, that Muslim women should be exempt from the requirement to be photographed on national identity cards. Without Blunkett's law, there'll be the odd crusty type from the shires huffing on BBC phone-ins that if Muslim women think it's insulting to be made to remove their hejab for ID cards, they should bloody well have thought about that before moving to Britain.With Blunkett's law, we'll discuss such questions, if at all, between tightly imposed government constraints explicitly favouring one party to the dispute.

I know which one of those options any self-respecting liberal democracy ought to prefer.

In The River War (1899), Winston Churchill's account of the Sudanese campaign, there's a memorable passage which I reproduce here while I'm still able to:

'How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

'Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.'

Is that grossly offensive to Muslims? Almost certainly.

Is it also a rather shrewd and pertinent analysis by one of Britain's most eminent leaders? I think so. If Blunkett bans the sentiments in that first sentence, the sentiments of the last will prove even more pertinent.

"A memorable passage which I reproduce here while I'm still able to."

Yesterday, in Hampshire, Paul Weston, the chairman of a newish political party called Liberty GB and a candidate in next month's European elections, was speaking on the steps of Winchester Guildhall and quoted that same Churchill passage.

A half-dozen police officers arrested him and took him away in a police van.

The Church of England was established by King Henry the Eighth to throw back the power of Rome. Well, that was his excuse. Really it was so he could roger a woman who was not yet his wife and dispense of his wife in a more furrin, dare I say, Muslim manner.

But the Independence of the

'British Christian Soul'

was at least part of the issue.

Christianity, despite its internal differences of opinion, maintained a solid core of 'Goodness', 'Love they neighbour', Forgiveness of Trespasses etc. The British Crown resisted the same edicts from catholic mouths but nevertheless stayed 'Defender of the Faith.No longer.The Satanic forces are gathering just as the Socialist left has weakened every last vestige of a Christian Britain.We may yet have to be rescued by outsiders who have greater courage.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Updated.Saints were never ordinary. There is a hint there for anyone who wants to see it. If you look at a field of wheat moving in the breeze, you see a 'level' height except for the occasional stalk that extends well above the rest. They are 'Outstanding'.Most, if not all, went firmly against the prevailing 'norms' of their societies.

They were Radicals.

Their focus was generally not political but that is all some people can see.The general height of the crop though is also important. Stony ground does not bode well, nor blight. And our society has always suffered from stones and blight. But it is from even poor soil that a crop may be gained over time and with effort. The soil can be improved.It looks as though the Prime Ministerial farmer in the UK has belatedly realized that a blight has hit the British society. Not that he is taking any of the blame for neglecting the soil or his failure to water and fertilise it properly. The fungus has been growing for quite a while whilst our politicians have sat at home whittling.Update:Guido Fawkes tells of the belated response to the latest political hypocricy in the UK.

Ed Miliband: Britain is a “Christian Country”by WikiGuido

And lo, it was Eastertide, and David spake unto the Church Times that Britain was indeed a Christian country. And it came to pass that godless pinkos wrote unto the Telegraph that David had sinned, for he had offended them. Despite 59% of Britons describing themselves as Christians in the most recent census, Britain having an established church and the Head of State being nominally still the Defender of the Anglican Faith.

Apparently saying so "fosters alienation and division in our society".

It is an odd thing, this 'divisiveness'. It is only divisive if it challenges 'change' foisted by 'progressives'. Their changes are never divisive, of course.

For some reason they did not feel the need to write a letter to a national newspaper ten days ago, when Ed Miliband on a visit to Israel said that Britain was quote "a Christian country"

Using religion for political ends? Who would do such a thing...

Nigel Farage, who cynics think is the real catalyst for Cameron's remarks on traditional Christian values, has just told ITV's Daybreak "I've been saying for years that Britain should be more muscular in its Christianity." Cameroon modernisers and their friends in the commentariat think that Dave talking about faith will impress older UKIP voters put off by the government's advocacy of gay marriage. Shows their cluelessness...

Quite a crowd had a long discussion in the Pin & Balloon yesterday. Much fine wine was consumed.

Daniel Martin was telling us....

British civil servants sent on course telling them how to 'do God':

Many don't know basics of Christianity

Civil servants are being given lessons on religion amid fears that many have no understanding of Christianity and other faiths.

In a sign of the increasing secularisation of our public services, employees across Whitehall have been urged to attend ‘How should governments “do” God’ seminars.

The events are designed to help officials ensure policies meet the needs of religious people.

Faith groups said it was astonishing that the civil service is so packed with metropolitan atheists that they have to be reminded to take into account the views of millions who are members of a major religion.

The seminars, which have been advertised across government departments, are being arranged by the faith team at the Department of Communities and Local Government.

They are designed to combat the sort of ‘biblical illiteracy’ which saw an Oxford Council official refuse permission for a traditional Good Friday Passion play.

As reported in yesterday’s Daily Mail, the official

did not know what a Passion play was and thought it might be a sex show,

rather than a traditional Easter performance depicting the trial, crucifixion and death of Jesus.

A flyer for the ‘How should governments “do” God?’ seminars, seen by the Mail, urges civil servants to sign up for them in order to ‘tailor your policy making to ensure it is responsive to the needs and perspectives of people of faith’.

Baroness Warsi, minister for faith and communities, has been clear that she sees it as part of the role of Government to set the conditions to be able to enable people of faith to manifest their religious beliefs openly and contribute to society.

‘This seminar... will focus on the drivers, obstacles to and benefits of departments “doing God” well.’ It adds that the idea is to improve ‘religious literacy’ across Whitehall and in the public sector in general.

David Cameron spoke this week of his own faith, saying that Britain should be unashamedly evangelical about its Christianity and let religion play a greater role in society.

Writing in the Church Times, the Anglican newspaper, he said he had experienced the ‘healing power’ of religion and Christianity could transform the ‘spiritual, physical, and moral’ state of the country.

However, his government has been accused by Christian groups of ignoring their concerns on issues such as gay marriage.

'By contrast, this Government strongly supports faith in public life. A little more education and training will help Whitehall recognise the important role than all faiths, including Christianity, play in our nation.’

Frankly these are simply weasel-words.Better are those of an interjector....

Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said:

‘I am daily dumbfounded by the depths of biblical illiteracy displayed by Britain’s chattering classes and especially by many in Parliament and our major institutions.

'Many members of this new liberal elite are simply intelligent barbarians; university graduates who know less about the basic tenets of Christianity than the three-year-olds in my wife’s Sunday school class.’

My good friend James Higham also spoke about the decline of Christianity under the 'Powers that Be' in Britain.

One way or the other, a pretty strong Christology arose that people were prepared to die for within 20 years of the death of Jesus. There’ve been many articles putting that down to the charisma of leaders fooling supporters, e.g. Jim Jones, Hitler, but what marks these is that they had no redemptive element, no healing – they were either destructive or hedonistic or both. They were based on hollow values.

And what is apparent, especially today, is, as the Spectator's Douglas Murray asked: Would human life be sacred in an atheist world?It’s disturbingly hard to say so.

This is the crux of the matter for the non-Christian in a society which was built at least on lip service to Christian ideals and what happens to a society which increasingly spurns that.

A glance at the media and it’s a constant litany of incest, small boys immolated in petrol, teens suiciding, broken families, even the leader of the nation bludgeoning through the anathema faux concept of marriage as gay but there’s something more disturbing than that.

It’s less safe, not just for women and children but also for men – it’s not a happy time for men, particularly older men, the respect women craved is diminishing in the new sexism which holds women in disrepute, as the dream fades, women are less and less happy and more and more shallow, a la Kardashian and adulthood is being forced on children, abetted by teachers, at an age where it should never ever be appearing. This is a Lord of the Flies scenario – a descent into savagery by abandoning the very things which kept everyone safe within the rule of law.

I’ve seen the result of 90 odd years of atheism in Russia and it’s not nice. At street level, it’s a very dangerous place and the double and triple doors to flats, including the metal outer door with its multiple bolts, plus the barred windows, is testimony to how Russians perceive personal safety.

An atheist world is not god-free morality, a happily Brave New World –

.... it never has been, wherever it’s been tried. Not in the least.

It is a world where the constraints people felt when Christian mores were still strong has gone and on the highway, that man who cuts you off in an act of road rage is liable to stab you to death now where once he’d have used his fists. It’s a world egged on by gaming for the masses where no action has any restraint – for what code of morals is left to restrain the person? Take revenge?

And it’s also a world of the PTB attempting to enslave and shore up its own position whilst going soft on criminals and hitting the innocent.

The decline of Christianity in the UK has continued apace since Henry the Eighth. The Protestant Churches, mostly built up around the egos of individuals who use Christ as a prop, have syphoned off many quite good people from the One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Church. People with potential and vigour.

Some of the finest people I know are from 'denominations' other than Catholic.

Their Faith in Christ is beyond question. They are beloved. Their choice of church is largely provided from childhood rather than intellectual discrimination.﻿

In the United Kingdom there is still in place the 'Catholic Emancipation Act' which whilst stopping the burning and head-chopping of Catholics nevertheless singles them out for continued prohibitions in positions of Public Office.Roger Wolsey, a Methodist Pastor, nevertheless had something to say about civil authorities getting involved with Faith and God.

Instead, the way that Jesus taught was that of out-right,

defiance and rejection of any powers that be,

any powers or principalities that dare to usurp God’s power in God’s world!

But Jesus’ way was a nonviolent way. He didn’t use the world’s ways against the world. He simply said that the worldly powers are impotent – they have no power, that the real power is with God and in the Kingdom of God!

And then Jesus demonstrated that power by reaching out to the people who society had rejected; and He invited people to repent and to change their way of thinking and living so that they could break free from ways which collaborated with the Empire so that they could start living freely and abundantly in deep community and communion with one another…

And then He went into the belly of the beast – right into the Temple in Jerusalem which had been collaborating with Roman imperial dominance and said “NO!”

He condemned the corrupted Temple system which had been blessing the unjust status quo and colluding with the Roman Empire. Without hitting anyone with that make-shift whip of his, he knocked over the tables in the courtyard and boldly confronted the powers and

We can see the seeds of that starting to get through to peoples on the opposite side of the world too.China has been deep in the pit of Communism and is slowly clawing its way back. The People are rediscovering that part of themselves that 'Powers and Principalities' cannot defeat.One of the Catellaxy crowd in the snug said:

One of the most enlightening books I have ever come across was The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark. And at the very end of this book there is a quote from a Chinese scholar who had been part of an investigation into the causes of Western economic success. This is a direct quote of what this Chinese scholar had said:

One of the things we were asked to look at was the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West, all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.

I was reminded of this by an article in London’s The Telegraph with the self-explanatory heading, China on course to become ‘world’s most Christian nation’ within 15 years. And while you may be sure the Chinese government has been keeping a watchful eye on where this might go, they have also not been attempting to stamp it out. And there are reasons for this, in keeping with that earlier study:

Some officials argue that religious groups can provide social services the government cannot, while simultaneously helping reverse a growing moral crisis in a land where cash, not Communism, has now become king.

They appear to agree with David Cameron, the British prime minister, who said last week that Christianity could help boost Britain’s “spiritual, physical and moral” state.

Ms Shi, Liushi’s preacher, who is careful to describe her church as “patriotic”, said:

“We have two motivations: one is our gospel mission and the other is serving society. Christianity can also play a role in maintaining peace and stability in society. Without God, people can do as they please.”

In place of a moral order we now have political correctness and the pagan religion of Gaia and the environment.

China, meanwhile, may become a Christian nation as we in the West depart from what may be the single most important part of the inheritance we have.

Australia & the West – Authoritarian freedom hating left v Freedom loving people => People of aspiration & ideas fighting to survive against crony class by holding to ideas of individual freedom unique to Judeo-Christian religions

Not that everyone can find agreement.Some will always hark back to the past looking through the fog created by Henry the Eighth's own Agitprop services. Yes, the Protestant King who started his own enslaved church had an entire department of state devoted to spreading lies, damned lies and statistics about the Catholic Church, and those same efforts still colour many people's thinking

One such voice piped up ...

There were centuries of church rule in Europe where intellectual progress was discouraged… it was the Enlightenment that allowed people to loosen their thought patterns and try new ideas, that’s what led to and explosion in science and technology.

But another voice challenged....

Hmmm, it was fortuitous then that I should stumble across this today:

This analysis dovetails nicely with the conceptions most people have these days of the Reformation, of traditional Catholicism, and of freedom and rationality and their relationship to authority and tradition. It is, for that reason, completely worthless. For such conceptions rest largely on clichés whose content owes less to actual historical fact than to the needs of Reformation and Enlightenment era anti-Catholic polemic.

Scholars like Stanley Jaki have painstakingly demonstrated that the scientific revolution was a natural outgrowth, rather than a wholesale rejection, of the Medieval Catholic intellectual tradition, and the oversimplifications and distortions inherent in the standard anti-Catholic reading of the Galileo episode have been exposed in books like Wade Rowland’s recent Galileo’s Mistake.

Henry Kamen’s work on The Spanish Inquisition documents similar distortions typical of accounts of that event, and Thomas Madden’s A Concise History of the Crusades makes evident that the Crusades were in essence nothing more than a (failed) attempt to turn the tide of centuries of Islamic aggression and liberate once-Christian lands long suffering under Muslim conquest – something for which modern Westerners owe no apology.

The notion that the Medieval Church lay in darkness, oppression, and superstition, desperately awaiting liberation by a coarse German monk, is, in short, a myth.

The Catholic Church was under diabolical attack from Day 1. It has weathered every attack that ol' Beelzebub has thrown at it. Those attacks continue.It is a blindness on the part of protestants to see the clear faults of the catholic church as Catholic Church faults. They are instead the results of constant battle, and battle causes damage. The walls get hammered; people within the Church fall. They 'fail spiritually'. The present-day scourge of paedophile priests (themselves small in number and all homosexual) and the older scourge of 'Indulgence selling' priests, Bishops, even Popes, show that even the best of men can be cut down by a determined enemy. And Satan is determined.But we have the words of Christ Himself to give us hope. Of His Church, the Catholic Church, He said,

"The Gates of Hell shall Not Prevail against it."

The Church needs its Saints. Its Militant Fighters. Its Radicals.Which side of the gates do you choose to be on?Pax. It has to be won.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

The cost of free speech is rising. That's inflation for you. The axioms of western civilisation are crumbling all around and no one is allowed to speak freely about them without threats and vicious actions. And the media kow-tow to the pressure groups, the minorities, even to the point of silencing themselves with their acquiescence to Government 'Orders'.Who is game to speak out?Well, Mark Steyn, for one.

These days, pretty much every story is really the same story:

• In Galway, at the National University of Ireland, a speaker who attempts to argue against the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) programme against Israel is shouted down with cries of ‘F..king Zionist, f..king pricks… Get the f..k off our campus.’

• In California, Mozilla’s chief executive is forced to resign because he once made a political donation in support of the pre-revisionist definition of marriage.

• At Westminster, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee declares that the BBC should seek ‘special clearance’ before it interviews climate sceptics, such as fringe wacko extremists like former Chancellor Nigel Lawson.

• In Massachusetts, Brandeis University withdraws its offer of an honorary degree to a black feminist atheist human rights campaigner from Somalia.

• In London, a multitude of liberal journalists and artists responsible for everything from Monty Python to Downton Abbey sign an open letter in favour of the first state restraints on the British press in three and a quarter centuries.

• And in Canberra the government is planning to repeal Section 18C — whoa, don’t worry, not all of it, just three or four adjectives; or maybe only two, or whatever it’s down to by now, after what Gay Alcorn in the Age described as the ongoing debate about ‘where to strike the balance between free speech in a democracy and protection against racial abuse in a multicultural society’.

I heard a lot of that kind of talk during my battles with the Canadian ‘human rights’ commissions a few years ago: of course, we all believe in free speech, but it’s a question of how you ‘strike the balance’, where you ‘draw the line’… which all sounds terribly reasonable and Canadian, and apparently Australian, too. But in reality the point of free speech is for the stuff that’s over the line, and strikingly unbalanced. If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all. So screw that.

But I don’t really think that many people these days are genuinely interested in ‘striking the balance’; they’ve drawn the line and they’re increasingly unashamed about which side of it they stand. What all the above stories have in common, whether nominally about Israel, gay marriage, climate change, Islam, or even freedom of the press, is that one side has cheerfully swapped that apocryphal Voltaire quote about disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it for the pithier Ring Lardner line: ‘"Shut up,” he explained.’

A generation ago, progressive opinion at least felt obliged to pay lip service to the Voltaire shtick. These days, nobody’s asking you to defend yourself to the death: a mildly supportive retweet would do. But even that’s further than most of those in the academy, the arts, the media are prepared to go. ...

I’m opposed to the notion of official ideology — not just fascism, Communism and Baathism, but the fluffier ones, too, like ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘climate change’ and ‘marriage equality’.

Because the more topics you rule out of discussion — immigration, Islam, ‘gender fluidity’ — the more you delegitimise the political system. As your cynical political consultant sees it, a commitment to abolish Section 18C is more trouble than it’s worth: you’ll just spends weeks getting damned as cobwebbed racists seeking to impose a bigots’ charter when you could be moving the meter with swing voters by announcing a federal programmne of transgendered bathroom construction. But, beyond the shrunken horizons of spinmeisters, the inability to roll back something like 18C says something profound about where we’re headed: a world where real, primal, universal rights — like freedom of expression — come a distant second to the new tribalism of identity-group rights.

And that is just scratching the surface.Our Universities frequently silence those who wish to discuss urgent matters. The worst silencers, who go about their silencing in the noisiest of ways, are Feminists. Robyn Urback on anti-male hatred on the Simon Fraser University campus

The same shoddy rationale was employed by protesters at Massachusetts’ Brandeis University, which was recently pressured into forgoing plans to award an honourary degree to women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Ali’s personal history is a remarkable testament to resilience — she was genitally mutilated at age five and became a refugee to flee an arranged marriage, yet still rose to become a distinguished member of Parliament, public speaker and author.

But her ongoing criticism of Islam, which she has called “imbued with violence,” was deemed “hateful” by a self-appointed group of safe-space-keepers at Brandeis University, and the administration shamefully caved to their demands and revoked their invitation.

Rex Murphy summed up the miserable picture in his weekend column, asking,

“Is this what Western thought and philosophy at the university has come to — setting up intellectual quarantines lest the immature and frightened be made uncomfortable or to feel unwelcome?

Is this university or daycare?”

At the University of Ottawa, where protesters resorted to clapping, yelling and blowing a horn to drown out professor Fiamengo’s speech on rape culture and men’s issues, the answer is self-evident.

The case could be made that Fiamengo’s rejection of rape culture, for example, is unhelpful to efforts to help victims of campus violence come forward, but just because protesters attempt to drown out her ideas doesn’t mean they’re not still there. They are — and they have been left unchallenged — because the Revolutionary Student Movement would rather bang on their desks in a futile, overgrown temper tantrum than actually refute her argument with contrary views.

Even churches are under attack by feminists. Men can stand and pray but not be protected against assault. And no action is taken to stop the feminists.

A large group of mums and dads with their children march in Germany and are attacked by 'Gays' who hurl faeces at them. 'Gay Marriage' is sacred to politicians. Freedom to speak against it is not protected.

So much of what was once 'normal' is now considered 'Hate' in some kafkeque inversion straight from '1984'.

GOOD PEOPLE have to find the courage to counter this erosion and depravity.

Lives are going to be lost.

﻿

Dark ages are upon us and a loud voice is needed.Otherwise, be prepared to die for your belief. Protesting that you always were 'liberal' will not help you. Just look what happened to Mozilla's CEO. He actually supported 'Gay' 'freedom'. He employed gay people. He gave a very small amount of money six years ago to a democratic discussion. That was enough to get him vilified and fired.Drink deep of courage and fortitude.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

A Victoria Cross awarded posthumously to Corporal Cameron Baird is on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.The 32-year-old Special Forces commando was killed in action in Afghanistan in June last year.He was shot during an assault on an insurgent-held compound in the village of Ghawchak.During the battle he repeatedly drew fire on himself to give his fellow soldiers the chance to gain ground.In February he became the 100th recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award presented for bravery during wartime.

Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird.

Corporal Baird's family decided to loan the medal to the Australian War Memorial to be displayed in the Hall of Valour alongside the three other Victoria Cross medals awarded for service in the Afghanistan conflict.His father, Doug Baird, says it is an honour."To be viewed by the general population rather than be kept away in a dark little area I think probably it's a continuation of the story," he said.The M4 rifle Corporal Baird used during his final battle has also been handed over to the memorial.Colonel Craig Shortt says the weapon and Corporal Baird's full medal set tell part of his story."It was about offensive spirit, the mental toughness and physical fortitude to persevere and overcome in the face of adversity. Mission first," he said."He was a humble man, he didn't seek glory but through his actions it was thrust upon him."He was adaptive. Cam was equally at ease training the Afghan security forces, or indeed sipping chai tea in an Afghan surah."It was about honour. A commando first, a commando for life, and then ultimately the selfless sacrifice that he made."Colonel Shortt said the M4 carbine is symbolic of Corporal Baird's commitment to his team and the mission."Within his locker, he had a number of different quotes. One of those was...

'The bar should never stagnate, it should always be rising'.

"He was outcomes focused and he led his team from the front to achieve those outcomes."

All in the Tavern's bars rose to toast a fine man.The Tavern will keep a tankard filled for the Rest of his mighty Soul.Update:The Tavern is grateful to Cherie for adding to the conversation. She said:

You asked so I will tell 

A number of years ago a colleague and I showed a couple of visitors from another department around the Weapons collection that was held at MoD Donnington. One of the exhibits was a replica of the Victoria Cross metal.

After we had finished our visit we called in on the senior military officer who was OIC of the building where the museum was housed, in order to say thank you for allowing us to arrange the visit. We got chatting with him and he asked if we would like to see the Victoria Cross metal. Well there was only ONE answer to that question! He then produced a locked box from within a locked cabinet in his office. He showed us the fragment of metal and pointed out the smooth side where the metal had been sliced to send for casting. He explained that a portion is always kept ready the jewellers, so they can start work on a medal when it is needed.

The security of the metal seems to have stepped up a bit since those good old days ;-)

In my early days at work the piece of VC gun metal had a Nato Stock Number (NSN) and was part of the weapons inventory in the storehouse. The VC gun metal was stored and locked in a secure cage along with other attractive items…

The following link refers to a stock record card, that is how the stores were accounted for before the advent of computers (the army were well behind the curve introducing computers into regular use).http://www.raaoc.com/?q=node/63

I think the picture in the link is showing the replica as it was displayed in the museum at Donnington. The cut portion of the metal is to the rear.

Then later as I mentioned below the gun metal was moved from the stores inventory (and stores location) and kept under lock and two keys by an Army officer.

Somehow you (often) seem to have the knack of getting me reminiscing ;-)

The Victoria Cross is the highest Award for valour in the World. No other medal comes close. The rank of the recipient does not affect the status conferred.

Wiki says: On 29 January 1856, Queen Victoria signed the Royal Warrant that officially instituted the Victoria Cross. The Warrant was backdated to 1854 to recognise acts of valour committed during the Crimean War. It was originally intended that the Victoria Crosses would be cast from the bronze cascabels of two cannon that were captured from the Russians at the Siege of Sevastopol.However, historian John Glanfield has proven, through the use of X-rays of older Victoria Crosses, that the metal used for the Victoria Crosses is in fact from antique Chinese guns, and not of Russian originThe barrels of the cannon used to cast the medals are stationed outside the Officers' Mess, at the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich. The remaining portion of the only remaining cascabel, weighing 10 kilograms (358 oz), is stored in a vault maintained by 15 Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps at Donnington, Telford, and can be removed only under armed guard. It is estimated that 80 to 85 more Victoria Crosses could be cast from this source. A single company of jewellers, Hancocks of London, established in 1849, has been responsible for the production of every medal since its inception.

Both the Australian and New Zealand Victoria Crosses are made from the same gunmetal as the originals.

The original medal was awarded to 96 Australians; 90 of these were received for actions while serving with Australian units; six were received for actions while serving with other units. Sixty-four awards were for action in the First World War, nine of them for action during the Gallipoli Campaign. Twenty medals were awarded for action in the Second World War, and the other medals were for action in the Second Boer War, Russian Civil War and in the Vietnam War. Warrant Officer Keith Payne was the last of the 'older' wars recipients, for gallantry on 24 May 1969 during the Vietnam War. Payne was awarded the medal for instigating a rescue of more than 40 men. Four more have now been awarded for actions in Afghanistan.

The media is constantly, grindingly full of demeaning statements about men. Parody, sarcasm, condemnation, criticism, calumny, all abound. The media seems to want men gone. Or at least remade in the image of woman.Demean, disrespect and dismiss men; these seem to underlie much of 'Family Law', that 'modern' euphemism for Kangaroo and Star Chamber Courts that operate to significantly overturn Traditional relations between the sexes and their offspring and 'punish' men for being... simply men.There are even 'learned' papers written about the demise of men altogether, by attrition or deliberate policy, sent out at irregular intervals from our feminist-dominated Universities.It disgusts many here at the Tavern. After all, everything around us, including the media, is the result of men's efforts; men's brains; men's dreams.The 'Y' Chromosome is 'thought' by some to be disappearing; it has certainly become leaner and meaner over the eons. But few acknowledge that the 2-3% genetic difference between mankind and the great Apes is found almost entirely on the human Y chromosome.

The small Package packs Humanity's punch.

The homes we live in were built by men. The roads we travel were constructed by men. Our cities, our farms, our means of travelling around the world and even off this world, were all Man-made. MAN Made.Apes didn't do it.Neither did women.Recognising and acknowledging men is not to say that women have not made a mark in the world; it says nothing detrimental about women at all. Women become the Mother of us all.But all too rarely do men get recognised and acknowledged for the phenomena of the Human Race's achievements. A spiritual person may look forward to St Augustine's 'City of God', a heaven on Earth. But even he or she will generally overlook ......

the certainty that MEN will build it.

It will not simply 'appear', ready made. Men are certainly very busy here on our present flawed world, making it a better place to live and find God.And some aspects of media are actually telling a more realistic story, should you care to find it, as we at the Tavern have been reminded all week with a marathon exhibition put on by some film makers.The chaps from Extreme Engineering have been here enjoying a lot of free pints of Goodness after their completions of their magnificent works. Their achievements have been showing all week in the Music room auditorium.

There is an unspoken story that just sometimes breaks through in these programs. The lives of the men involved.In all instances, Hundreds of ordinary men strive together to do what is often seen as the Impossible. They devise innovative and sometimes revolutionary ways of overcoming the most difficult problems in doing their tasks. They persist. They think. They challenge themselves. They behave as men do, in friendship and teamwork.And what drives them?Most of the men are not visionaries. They work to support their families.Most do not have grandiose views about what they are doing.

They do not 'big-note' themselves.

They do not crow about gender.

They don't talk about false 'pay-gaps'.

They do not claim to have to work twice as hard as any woman. Even when they are working three times as hard, in all weathers, in extreme danger. It never gets mentioned.

For instance: Turning
Torso Mega Structures Documentary

There is a brilliant illustration or two in this particular film. The men had to 'man-handle' a concrete pouring pipe in a confined space. The concrete was pumped up multiple storeys using a 'ram' technique. The shock to the men, physically, was tremendous. One man said, "I felt like I was 100 years old by the end of the shift".

Can you imagine that man coming home and listening to his wife saying she had a hard day loading the washing machine and doing the shopping?

And a woman 'inspects' the yet to be completed floor high above the vista of Sweden's famous bridge to Denmark before her. She asks the builder where her bookshelves will go.

Again, I am not demeaning the woman. She was concerning herself with her personal matters, but quite oblivious to the men and the conditions they were working in to actually build the home she was eventually to occupy. But I can imagine her telling her husband later that evening about the terrible business of getting her shoes dirty.

Will she ever wonder who built the bridge?

Did she ever wonder why 94% of workplace deaths are MEN ?

Does she ever wonder just why it is that men die, on average, 7 years earlier than the women who struggle with loading the washing machine?

But even the visionaries, the financiers, the 'executives' who enable these huge projects - men who are constantly criticised by our envy-driven media - have family concerns driving them. They too are bending their skills, intellect and brawn to provide for others.THAT is what marks out Men.They go out into the world of danger and toil to Provide for others.Again, I am not demeaning women especially those who make a fine, warm, welcoming and nurturing home for those men and the children of those men.

There will be no 'book' for people to read, given prominence in the foyer of that beautiful, gigantic building, detailing the names and showing the photos of the hundreds of men who built it.

The workmen, skilled, intelligent, labouring and 'tradies', professionals all, will not be lauded by anyone.

A man, an 'ordinary' worker, at the end of that program mentions the bridge (made famous by Saga Norgen the autistic detective in the Danish-noir series, "The Bridge" )....

"When I drive across it, I tell my passengers

"I built this bridge" ".

﻿

And this happens all over the world. Many men can be personally proud of their achievements. Ordinary men can be proud of their contribution, large as it is. Perhaps this is one of the drivers of feminist envy and hatred. Men rarely 'hate' women the way women-in-general exercise their general low-level, ignoring hatred of men and Feminist their high-level active, manipulative hatred. Men get on with creating the 'things of the world', even to the point of the land those things stand on.

Building
Hong Kong's Airport

Greenies were of course appalled by Hong Kong. And they always protest the great works that men do. How dare those wicked Capitalists disturb the fish. And the media will still demean the men , most of the time, despite it being men who build everything we see and use.

Let us have a round of applause for men.

I will continue to get a round in for them. It is the least a Tavern Keeper can do.

Religion & Peace

King Amfortas

About Me

The Knackered Old Knight, the wounded King. The Keeper-Emeritus of the Grail and now keeper of a Tavern.
I wore Black Armour, not white, although there were quite Kingly gold and silver bits. I still do.
But now I also have rolled-up sleeves and a towel.
I still keep the Faith.
Welcome to my Public House & Fine Dining. Here are to be found food for Soul and drink for the Spirit.
And some Roughage too.
I also contribute as an Author at the 'Nourishing Obscurity' blog;
and as a 'member' at Anti-misandry.com